Grains of Sand in the Passage of Time
by Jaslyn
Summary: They could've met at any harbour on the distant shores of time, but still endlessly finding a way back to each other's arms. Elsanna. A look at Elsanna through multiple AUs
1. And an Angel fell from the sky

Okehampton, England, 30th May 1940

The engine lets out a shudder as she levels the plane off. Squinting through the gunsight, Elsa lines the green speck between the crosshairs, before pulling the trigger, right as the enemy disappears behind a cloud.

" _Scheiße-_ "

Yanking hard on the stick, she banks until the Spitfire comes into view. The maneuver puts a head-numbing pain between her eyes, but it's not enough. In a split-second, the little green speck vanishes from her sight again. A trickle of sweat soaks the collar of her khaki uniform as she swivels her head, daring the other bird to come out and face her. Static bursts into her ears.

" _Geh, geh! Er ist hinter dir!_ " (Go, go! He is behind you!)

The pitter-patter of gunfire raises goosebumps on her skin as she jams her fist on the throttle and stick together. Bullets rip through her airframe, before the cockpit shatters, sending glass flying into her face, and wind into her eyes. Blood rushes out of her head before flooding back behind her eyeballs as she pulls up hard.

"Hans, Hans!" Elsa screams into the radio, " _Wo bist du?"_ (Where are you?)

A plume of black smoke streaking across the sky answers Elsa's frantic question. From this distance, she watches wide-eyed as the swastika emblazoned on his tail fin catches fire, before exploding into a shower of light and metal. Gritting her teeth, Elsa winces as a tracer streaks through her cockpit; so close she could smell magnesium in the air.

" _Nein-"_

A rattle pierces through her eardrums, too loud for comfort. Even with the wind billowing around her, Elsa chokes as clouds of smoke envelop her lungs. She jams on the stick one more time, praying for it to save her.

The breath catches in her lungs as nothing happens at all.

She turns just in time to watch her right wing get torn off by bullets, before the propeller disintegrates into shrapnel. Her gloved fingers close around the straps long enough for the plane's engine to give one last mighty heave, before going silent. She fumbles with the straps as spinning overwhelms her senses. She doesn't even notice the vertigo flooding her brain until her limbs begin flailing in free fall.

 _I'm...falling._

The wreckage floats away in shards of red and green; at least a mile from her by the time Elsa comes to her senses. Instinct sends her hand yanking on the cord - she's never done this before, and the parachute harness rips the breath from her lungs as it goes taut. Looking up, she spots the two Spitfires heading back north, having done their part to keep the Luftwaffe away for a day. The helmet had been torn from her head by the force of her egress, and she watches heart-in-throat, at the green expanse of southwestern England beneath her dangling feet, inching towards her like a dragon looking to devour her whole.

Elsa's skin bristles with a billion thoughts of what the British would do to an enemy pilot. Let alone an enemy _female_ pilot. All of a sudden, she realises that she had plenty of options to end it all: blowing her brains out mid-air with that Luger in her jacket, or biting on the cyanide Herr Göring gave her, or she could just pull the release catch on her chute and wait for death. Stuck in the limbo between deciding which way to die - she doesn't realise until a tree branch grazes her foot; it's too late.

She hears the hounds barking even before she's hit the ground.

"Dere e' is lads! By the trees!"

The light starts to fade from the sky. She turns to see specks of light descending the knoll towards her. Didn't the last guy who went down near an English village get gutted like a fish? _Common Englishmen are savages who can't rein in their instincts._

Bracing a foot against the tree, Elsa hurls herself from her cover as the shouting intensifies.

"He's hurt!" the shouting continues, "Get im'!"

At their words, Elsa gasps at the pain rippling through her leg. She clutches her thigh, only for her hands to slip away in cold mess of blood and sweat. Heaving from the exertion, panic grips Elsa as a bullet streaks inches from her head. Stumbling through the woods, her foot catches in a branch and hurls her through the damp leaves.

The sight of mud on her hands sends her scrambling to her feet. Within seconds, a river comes into view. Another bullet splashes the surface, shattering its radiant vermilion hue. Stretching her eyes to the horizon, Elsa grits her teeth as she tries to forget the words of her parents.

Sticking a foot into the water, Elsa bites down on her lip as it comes away with ice. Another step, and the hard icy surface crackles with life. Looking over her shoulder, she clutches the jacket to her chest as she flees across the river. Despite the blood leaking from her leg, it takes Elsa less than a minute to clear the icy surface. Thin ice, light enough for her, proves to be too much for her pursuers. They holler in anguish as it gives way beneath them, sending both men and beasts thrashing about in the icy waters.

The burst of adrenaline from earlier proves short-lived. With her head spinning, Elsa collapses on the river bank. In the corner of her eye, she notices a figure approaching, holding a lantern. Too large to be a child, too small for a man. The thought of being butchered alive crosses her mind, but try as she may, no strength comes to her limbs. With her last ounce of strength, Elsa clutches at the Iron Cross around her neck, before ripping it off and sticking it in her pocket. As her eyes flutter shut, Elsa smiles as something soft and gentle caresses her face, so warm and unlike anything she'd felt today.

The warmth eludes her and darkness takes over.

* * *

The radiant warmth resumes as soon as Elsa stirs awake. She shifts about, wincing at the prickly hay beneath her.

"Don't move-"

Elsa looks at the source of the voice, and warmth. A girl, no older than herself, crouches beside a fire. Elsa's eyes widen at the shotgun perched on her hip.

"You owe me some explanations," the red-headed girl continues, "why those men were pursuing you, how you froze the river over, what you're doing out here in the country."

The pain in her leg had gone, replaced by crude bandages. It must've been just a graze. Feigning injury, Elsa touches a hand to her jacket and lets out a sharp whine. Her heart contracts as the shape of a gun presses back against her palm. _The girl didn't even bother to search her._

"Answer me!" she snarls, waving the shotgun around like it meant something, "you're not... _German,_ are you?"

"What, no!" Elsa answers, before realising her accent would give her away in an instant. She pauses, and tries to remember the last _English_ she heard on television, probably something Chamberlain said.

" _That's preposterous!"_ Elsa mutters.

"And that tells me nothing about how you got here."

"M-my parents died and left most of my fortune to my brother," Elsa answers, speaking slowly to avoid suspicion, "unfortunately, he got mixed up with some bad apples and fled. The men chasing me are looking for him-"

Elsa pauses as the girl lowers her gun.

"R..really?"

Unwilling to butcher anymore of the English language, Elsa nods. For a moment, the two girls stare at each other, fear and anxiety written into their faces.

"Well, what's your name?" She asks, setting the shotgun against a bale of hay, "I'm Anna."

"I'm...E..Elsa, nice to meet you," Elsa answers, shaking the girl's hand; caked in mud but warm like a summer breeze. Elsa's chest clenches as Anna lets go of her hand.

"Would you care for some tea, Elsa?"

"No, I really should be going, I don't want to impose-"

"Oh bollocks, no one comes here and leaves without tea," Anna mutters, before getting up.

Elsa watches the girl's slender form saunter out the barn door. She left the shotgun unattended on the hay, and it blew Elsa's mind how anyone could be so trusting. In Germany, no one trusted each other with the time of the day, and children routinely sold their parents out to the Gestapo.

Before long, Anna returns with a mug of tea. Accustomed to rich, dark Luftwaffe ration coffee, the tea tastes like drainwater to Elsa, but she smiles and thanks the girl for her kindness. Amidst the barn's stench of cow manure, Elsa sips her drainwater tea, and tries not to think about how hard Anna's staring at her.

"You're kind of pretty, aren't you?" Anna whispers, staring into Elsa's eyes, "too pretty for this part of the world."

"What?" Elsa whispers, as warmth floods her face, "I'm uh, pretty? Thank you. I mean, you're pretty too?"

"Not as much as you."

As Elsa's eyes adjust to the dimness of the barn, she takes in Anna's rough, freckled features. The girl's hair had been tied into pigtails, and there was a strength in her figure that betrayed a life which knew only work. Elsa casts a glance at the shape of Anna's bosom hidden beneath the plain, blue dress, and her throat clenches.

"What're you looking at?" Anna snaps, sending Elsa's gaze to the straw-covered floor. From the corner of her eyes, Elsa notices Anna smirking.

"Nothing."

Anna pauses, before asking, "And why do you talk like that?"

Ice forms on Elsa's boot heels.

"Like what?"

"The way you talk," Anna points out, "you're obviously not English."

Elsa swallows. Cold spreads through her clenched hands.

"I'm...I'm Dutch," Elsa lies.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," Anna says, "how did you manage to get out?"

"Last flight out," Elsa mutters, looking over Anna's shoulder, "it wasn't easy."

"Is it...is it bad in Holland, right now?"

"Yes, especially in Rotterdam," Elsa whispers, recounting the burnt bodies lining the street on her second flight past. She should know; she caused it.

Lost in her memories, she doesn't notice Anna shifting to her side, and cradling her head on her lap. The sheer comfort of such a gesture takes her by surprise.

"You're too nice to me," Elsa mutters, daring to put a hand on her thigh, "what did I ever do to deserve your kindness?"

"What did I ever do to deserve a beautiful stranger falling into my arms?"

Elsa looks into Anna's eyes, looking for the slightest trace of deceit or manipulation. Of course there's none - the girl was pure, innocent; the daughter of farmers. Elsa herself, was the liar, the aggressor, the villainous sky-pirate who flew in on the winds and shot up their trains. The thought brings a tear to Elsa's eyes.

"Does it still hurt?" Anna asks.

"No, I think I got lucky today."

"Can you walk? We should probably get you out of the cold."

"The cold never bothered me anyway," Elsa answers, wanting nothing more than to be in this girl's arms forever, "and I think I can give walking a try."

Pain burns through Elsa's shin when she stands, but she grits her teeth and allows Anna to help her hobble to the farmhouse. No one's around when she limps in, and the pain subsides enough for her to walk to Anna's bathroom unassisted. A plain enamel bathtub confronts Elsa as Anna leaves to draw bathwater.

 _No running water._

An ugly gash greets Elsa when she unties the bandages, and it stings like hell when she lowers it into a basin of ice-cold water Anna had set out for her. She picks up the thin sliver of soap, barely thicker than a communion wafer, and baths quickly - unsure if the men from earlier are really setting the house on fire as she washes herself. When she's done, Elsa wraps herself in a frayed bath towel and emerges to see Anna sitting on the bed, with rolls of gauze next to her. Her pigtails had been undone, and the girl's hair fell across her shoulders like sheets of copper.

"I'll change your bandages."

Elsa allows her bruised body to sink into the softness of Anna's bed as the girl bandages her wounds. It hurts, no doubt; but the pain pales to the pleasure of having Anna's fingertips dancing across her naked shin. Her scent was everywhere, and it pained Elsa not to turn and bury her face into Anna's pillow. The thought sends her fingers gripping the sheets.

"I'm not hurting you too much, am I?"

"No, you're not," Elsa replies, trembling when Anna looks up at her, "w-why're you so kind to me?"

A deft knot finishes the dressings, and she slides next to Elsa.

"I'm sure the world could use a bit more kindness, there hasn't been much going around lately."

It takes Elsa every ounce of strength to forget the words of hatred the Führer had burned into her brains, and to relish the moment that is right now - just this girl sitting in front of her, and how close she is to her. Ever since she was young, no one dared get too close to her - like she possessed some sort of hidden coldness the world could discern, even if they never knew for sure.

"You should get some rest," Elsa whispers, "I've been nothing but a burden to you."

"Don't say that," Anna answers, resting a palm on Elsa's uninjured thigh, "I kinda like this..caring for you."

Elsa looks away, desperate to avert herself from Anna's magnetic gaze. The girl tips Elsa's chin back towards her.

"I kinda like you too," Anna whispers.

A hand snakes around Elsa's waist, and her self-control vanishes. The taste of Anna's lips melts her like scorching fire. In a split-second, everything around her; the room, the war, her wounds, all evaporates into passion as she falls deeper into the kiss. It's like nothing she ever felt before - not the stolen moments with the Luftwaffe nurses or impassioned _Hitlerjugend_ girls. It feels real, exhilarating, and it leaves Elsa wanting more when their lips part.

"I like you as well," Elsa whispers against her lips. Every muscle in her body quivers with an unseen energy, from her lips to her snow-white fists bunched around Anna's dress.

"Well, what should we do about it?" Anna says, nuzzling up against Elsa's bruised neck.

"I...I don't know," Elsa says, struggling to cope with the tidal wave of desire surging through her, "I'll probably be gone in the morning."

"And I don't care," Anna answers, as she slips in next to Elsa, "we'll just have to make tonight last, then."

The dying embers of a coal stove flicker in the dimness as both bodies melt into one another. Despite knowing her name for less than a day, Elsa finds herself muttering _Anna,_ over and over again. The air around them is silent, save for their voices pleading, whimpering, and begging for _more_ with such fervency it's impossible to tell one from the other.

"Hold me," Anna pleads, as she finishes for the last time, "please."

Glistening sweat coats Elsa's body when she's done, and her chest heaves from the exertion, but she obliges Anna's request - even it's the last thing she'd ever give her.

* * *

The bed next to Elsa is empty when she wakes up. A pang of longing strikes her, but she smiles at the girl's dress draped upon a chair from where it had been flung across the room last night.

"Anna?" Elsa calls out. She hears voices outside, and quickly dresses herself. Edging the door open, Elsa relaxes when she spots Anna talking to a middle-aged couple.

"There she is!" Anna points at her, "All the way from Holland, can you believe it? And she ended up right here on the farm-"

Elsa smiles, only to freeze in place when she notices the look on their faces. She's seen it hundreds of times, in the eyes of Jews as she walked past them in her Luftwaffe Uniform, or the faces of children in the occupied countries.

 _Fear._

With a sweep of an arm as thick as a tree-trunk, the man shoves Anna behind himself.

"Dutch, you say?" he says, his voice filling up the room. He extends an upturned palm, and the object glinting inside causes Elsa's blood to run cold.

 _Her Iron Cross._

"I think you dropped this."

The burnished swastika in the middle gleams in the morning light. Anna's eyes widen in curiosity at the tiny piece of metal, and then - betrayal. Elsa's heart is crushed when the girl shoots a hurtful look at her. Without a word, Anna turns and flees, wiping a tear from her face.

Pain strikes Elsa's heart cold as she watches the girl flinging open the door and running away from her. She's never felt this pain before, a crippling realization of how much she hurt someone who showed nothing but love towards her.

"Get out," the man snarls, reaching for a hunting rifle, "get the hell out of my house or I'll make you."

Before he finishes his sentence, Elsa takes off after Anna. The morning sun blinds her with its fury, but she makes out Anna's figure nearly a half-mile away. A cloud of dust appears in the distance, When it settles, a half-dozen trucks appear, painted in olive green and bristling with soldiers. The trucks veer off the dirt track and head directly towards Anna, it takes them less than a few seconds to corral her.

"No-" Elsa gasps, as a man disembarks and points a finger at Anna. She shakes her head at the furious Scottish accent barking out a demand, before other soldiers hop off their trucks and move towards Anna with rifles pointed at her.

" _Nicht ihr, Dummkopfe!" (Not her, fools!)_ Elsa snarls, before running towards them. Anna's stuttering voice makes a fainthearted attempt at arguing back with him, before the Army Captain, nearly a foot taller than her, punches Anna hard in the face. Elsa's guilt from earlier evaporates into rage.

Elsa screams at the sight of three soldiers hooding her head and wrestling the hundred-pound girl onto the grassy lawn. They pick her up with ease and deposit her in the truck. The ground beneath Elsa's feet freezes as she screams at them to stop, and the normally mild english spring turns to winter. Before long, snow drifts around her, and a blizzard brews. A furious wind picks Elsa up and sends her hurtling forward, but all she can feel is the blistering rage creeping beneath her skin. The trucks are soon torn apart by the fury of Elsa's magic, and the wind sends her crashing headfirst into its shattered remains.

Winter falls in a mile-radius when Elsa emerges from the frozen carnage. The sight of bodies littered around her sends Elsa reeling with horror, but her heart leaps when she notices Anna emerging from the wreckage. She moves to help her, and it puts a knife in her heart to watch Anna recoling from her touch.

"I'm...I'm sorry," Elsa whispers. She snivels and looks away from the wind, but it does nothing to stop the tear sliding down her face, "I'm sorry for lying to you."

The snowfall settles. Anna looks at the sleet clumped between her feet.

"It doesn't make sense, you're supposed to hate us, but you saved me," Anna whispers, "and...and...last night, I've never been touched like that before."

"I don't want to hate anybody," Elsa stammers, wiping the ice flaking off her cheeks, "least of all someone as beautiful and perfect as you."

Anna turns, and Elsa's chest clenches when she sees her reddened eyes.

"Who are you?" Anna stutters, trying and failing to keep a tear from spilling down her cheek, "you're so foreign and strange, and yet it's like i've known you my entire life."

Snow drifts between the pair, studding Anna's red hair with flecks of white. They stare at each other, with a million words unsaid between them.

"I...I wish I knew you somewhere else, sometime else," Elsa whispers, as a snowflake perches itself on Anna's hair, "you look like someone I could fall in love with."

Anna stares at the fair lady before her, clothed in one of her own dresses. Everything about Elsa took her breath away, and yet - somehow, she's supposed to hate her. All that just because she was born in another country?

"I wish I knew you there and then, then."

Smoke emerges from over the hill. Behind Elsa, she hears Anna's parents shouting at her.

"You shouldn't stay here," Anna says, gritting her teeth as though the words pained her.

"I know I shouldn't, but I'll never see you again."

Anna looks at the snowy ground, "Where will you go?"

"To Ireland, or Spain, somewhere I can sit out the rest of this war."

"I pray you'll use what you have, to end it," Anna says.

"Perhaps," Elsa says, trying to dispel the frost around her, and failing, "perhaps I'll-"

"No," Anna answers, inhaling sharply, "hope is a curse. I don't want to go mad wishing you back."

"Goodbye, then," Elsa says, biting on her lip and looking for the wind that will wrench her away from Anna's side. She prays it comes quickly.

"Wait!" Anna cries, throwing herself into Elsa's arms, "Please...please write me, or something. I...I don't want you to just be a memory."

The fevered pitch and trembling in Anna's voice clenched at Elsa's chest. She chokes back a sob.

"I wish I could be with you, forever," Elsa whispers, cradling Anna's face, and pressing her lips to her.

The moment is all too brief, but as the numbing bliss of their union subsides, Anna feels a hard, metallic object pressed in her palm. By the time she opens her eyes, Anna grasps at the snow floating around her, helpless to stop Elsa's body from being carried away by the frozen wind.

* * *

The war rages on without consequence to Anna in her town of Okehampton. Military intelligence never found the downed pilot they were looking for, and the blown-up trucks were written off as bombed by returning Ju-88s. No one also questions why a quaint farmhouse in the middle of the English countryside would be receiving periodic correspondence from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Still, when Anna's friends notice the Iron Cross pinned to the side of her bedroom wall, they quiz her incessantly as to its origins.

"You wouldn't believe me even if I told you," Anna says, shaking her head, "a German pilot crashed on the riverbank."

The other girls' eyes widen as Anna continues.

"I was out hunting with the dog when I saw him landing. He tried to escape the burning cockpit and I blew his brains out."

"God, that's intense, what happened next?"

"I took his medal before the Home Defense lads came and dismantled the plane."

"How did it feel killing the enemy?"

Anna clenches her fists around the hem of her dress.

"Breathtaking," Anna says, fighting back the tears, "but I died a little on the inside."


	2. they bound and burned her

Bamberg, Bavaria, March 16th 1626

The man wrapped a wool cloak around himself as he stepped out from the carriage, but it did nothing to stop the incessant shivering that plagued him and the clergy who followed behind him. Before them laid a scene of desolation: frozen earth as far as the eye could see, with hapless peasants ploughing the dead land in vain. The scene didn't move him, despite being a far cry from his childhood memories playing and toiling in the field.

A bishop approached, his eyes having similar disdain for the devastation. Hans bowed to him as the old man, clad in ornate vestments, swept before him. He knelt and kissed his ring.

"Not good," the bishop snarled, poking his staff at the unyielding earth beneath him, "it's not getting better."

Hans tried to think of something in response, but all he thought of was the bitter-cold that pierced right through to the bone, and how much he'd like to be back at the Castle.

"We're running out of time," the bishop continued, as he sniffed the air around him, like it carried some vileness only he could discern, "running out of money too."

"Yes, reverend," Hans said, bowing his head and hoping it'd end the exchange.

"They'll be dropping off like flies if this continues," the Bishop said, before pointing a finger at Hans, "do something about them."

With a flick of his wrist, the Bishop ordered the priests back into the carriage, but Hans faltered.

"Apologies, your reverend, what should I do about them?"

The Bishop clenched his fists, before he hissed,

" _Find someone to blame."_

* * *

Muffled shouting roused the girl from her sleep. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the gap beneath her bedroom door.

 _No lights._

The shouting from outside continued, and curiosity caught hold of her. She tiptoed across the room and perched herself on the window sill, pressing her nose against the glass. It's the middle of March, but snowflakes still drifted beneath the glow of a new moon. The breath catched in her lungs as she noticed the source of the shouting - a crowd in the townsquare, and flickers of light scattered amidst the throng. Elsa remembered her parents words, and slipped on a pair of velvet gloves. The shouting crescendoed as three hooded figures were brought out from the town's hall, and Elsa's eyes widened as they were tied to wooden stakes already erected in the middle.

Men began to light fires around them. At once, the shouting died down. Even from this distance, she heard their bloodcurdling pleas, and began to tremble as their words reached her ears.

" _No, please, no! We repent, we have sinned, we commit ourselves to the church-"_

The fire in the townsquare grew in intensity as the blaze consumed everything in its path. Before long, their pleas turned to screams, and its ghastly noise filled Elsa's head with terror, until the grating of her bedroom door shook her with fright.

"Elsa!" Gerda shouted, as Kai leapt into the room to yank her away from the window, "What on earth are you doing up? Get down from there!"

Kai lifted the girl with ease, and drew the curtains. With a sigh, he tucked her back beneath the sheets. The hearth in Elsa's room roared with life, but it was no warmer than the icy air outside. Gerda's eyes fell upon the frosty handprints left on her windowsill, but she chose to ignore them.

"Look, I'm not a child anymore - why are they doing this to them?"Elsa asked, only to receive stoic faces in reply

"It's just a bad dream, alright?" Gerda whispered, as she helped Elsa slip the gloves from her hands. The sting of frost as it bit back into her hands sent a shudder through the old lady's body, but she tried not to let it show. Elsa sank into her bed, trying to listen to her parents muffled voices as they shut the door behind them.

 _"_ _What did you see?"_

 _"_ _Three more tonight, in the townsquare."_

 _"_ _Oh, mother of Christ!"_

 _"_ _Shh! They can hear you!"_

Elsa strained to hear more of their conversation, but there was only silence. The moon's radiance glowed through Elsa's curtains, and she turned her attention to the ice on her hands.

 _It's ok, I must've touched the window and the frost somehow gotten onto me._

The longer she looked at it, the more the frost grew.

 _Oh please, no_

Frost covered her hands and crept onto her wrists. A tear slid down her cheek, but even that too, froze over. As much as she tried, Elsa couldn't stop the ìce from consuming her limbs. Panic clenched at her chest, and she choked back a sob, afraid it'll wake her parents. Elsa's lungs burned with fire as she breathed harder and harder at the sight of ice spreading up her elbows, until a loud knock on her door snapped her out of her panic.

"Elsa?" A voice queried.

"Go away, Anna," Elsa said, unwilling to let her sister see her in this state - but the frost had already departed from her.

"C'mon, you never let me in these days, it's so cold without you."

"I don't think it's much warmer here," Elsa said, until she realised that at the sound of her sister's voice, all trace of cold had vanished from the room, now toasty like a summer's evening.

"All right then," Elsa said, "Come in-"

No sooner had Elsa's finished her sentence, then when Anna bounded into the room and leapt into Elsa's bed.

"What happened?" Anna rattled, "Why were they in here?"

"Um, it's nothing," Elsa muttered, as she pulled the sheets over Anna.

"What was all that commotion outside about?" Anna continued, crawling towards the window.

"No!" Elsa exclaimed, holding Anna back, "They're having a...um...meeting in the townsquare."

"Why aren't we going, then?"

"Because it's for the men."

"Why isn't father going, then?"

Elsa's heart warmed at her sister's incessant questions.

"Your curiosity is insatiable, isn't it?" Elsa said, pinching her cheeks.

"I wish you were back at school," Anna groaned, "things aren't the same without you around."

"Everything has to end someday, doesn't it?"

Anna looked into Elsa's eyes; the faint moonlight lent a fragile nature to the girl's fair complexion, so delicate and gentle and unlike herself. Despite being two years younger than her sister, Anna found herself wanting nothing more than to protect such a beautiful woman.

"Not us," Anna whispered, as the gap between them filled with warmth, "I wish we'd never be apart."

A billion thoughts raced through Elsa's mind at her sister's words. Inevitably, one of them would have to leave to handle her father's mercantile affairs, or marry into nobility. And then there was the perpetual frost, the burnings and lynchings. Somehow, she felt that it all had something to do with her. Which was probably the reason they kept her inside and refused to let her out into the daylight.

"I love you so much," Anna whispered, as she sank further into Elsa's embrace. Hearing the words melted away every trace of anxiety within her. She clutched Anna closer to herself, liking the way her sister's steady heartbeat and breathing felt against her. Despite the whirlwind of change around her, Anna was there through it all, and in that very moment, she couldn't care less what happened tomorrow, as long as her sister was right there with her.

"I love you too," Elsa whispered back, as she hoped, in the silence - that this moment would last forever.

* * *

The clouds cleared the next day, but there was still an evident frost in the air. So rife was the cold that the town's children - already gaunt with hunger, stopped running about between the houses and shivered in their boots.

Perched at a desk between rows of clay jars, Elsa furrowed her brows and tried to copy the numbers down as neatly as she could. Lost in concentration, Anna's interruption startled her.

"Elsa," Anna said, "the house of Schmidt is here, from Waldorf. They inquire on the prices."

Elsa's mind churned with thoughts.

"That's insane, all the way from Waldorf?" Elsa said, as she glanced towards the map, "Tell them: two pounds of wheat for a pence, and six pounds of barley for a pence. Careful with the oil and wine."

"Aye, sister, I'll see what we can spare them."

The sound of shovelling grain and clinking coins didn't rouse Elsa from her place, but she bolted upright at the ruckus of an upturned table.

" _Where's that witch?"_ a voice echoed through the house, " _We know you're hiding her!"_

Elsa leapt to the door, only to have a threatening glance from her father directed at her through the gap. At once, she crouched behind and shuddered at the source of the voice: a monk, who clutched onto his staff like it were the cross of Jesus Christ.

"Get out!" Kai yelled, as he shoved Anna behind himself, "Don't we pay the church enough tithes not to be harassed?"

" _Bring her out!"_ he continued his tirade, and the wooden doorpost splintered between Elsa's tightening grasp, " _That she may be judged for her sorcery!"_

The monk turned and observed a curious crowd of onlookers around the house.

"This home is a breeding ground for witches and pagans," he announced to the crowd, as they hemmed in closer, "it must be burnt to the ground! God wills it!"

The crowd murmured in response, until the monk struck his first blow, sending Kai crashing into the ground.

Elsa gasped, and backed away from the door as the monk lashed out at Kai. The paunchy man stood upright and shoved the monk back into the crowd, only for a chorus of jeering to break out. The throng of curious onlookers now resembled a powder keg, waiting to be set ablaze.

"How _dare_ you!" the monk yelled, only to be struck hard in the face by a sudden red blur that flashed before his eyes.

" _Anna, no!"_ Elsa gasped, as she watched Anna place herself between Kai and the monk. Her hands grasped a shovel, which she swung at his head. Blood spurted from its impact.

The crowd backed away from the sight of crimson upon the pavement.

"Don't you fucking dare!" Anna screeched. The sight of a five foot tall girl wielding a shovel proved too much for both the monk and the crowd, and they dispersed.

The storeroom door swung open, and Elsa slid backwards on the sheen of ice beneath her.

"No, oh, heavens, no," Elsa stammered, as the firm arms of Anna's embrace did nothing to calm her frayed nerves, "t-they weren't looking for me, were they-"

"It's ok, it's ok," Anna whispered, helping her sister onto the bench.

"I think your sister dealt him a strong homily on the virtues of love," Kai said, as he walked in sporting a gash to his head.

"Father, you're hurt," Elsa whimpered, pointing at his wounds. Kai hesitated, before allowing his daughter to touch them. The biting cold seeped into his skin, and within a moment, his pain was gone.

"You never cease to amaze us,"Kai said, before looking at Anna, "Don't tell your mother she did that."

"Whyever not?" Anna asked

"She's afraid of me, isn't she?" Elsa said, as she put her gloves back on, "Her and the Church and the entire Town, everyone's afraid of me. That's why I haven't been outside for a year-"

"C'mon, we're trying to protect you," Kai said, clasping her daughter's hands, "there's nothing more precious to us than the both of you."

"I don't think you can protect me for much longer," Elsa replied, looking at the mess in front of the door, "even if it means imprisoning me here for the rest of my life."

Kai looked at the blood on Anna's knuckles, "You're right. This can't go on forever."

"We'll hold them off, won't we?" Anna quipped

"Maybe today, but one day they'll come back with clubs and pitchforks. What then?"

"Then I'll die here, protecting my family," Anna voiced, without hesitation, "And it would be a worthy death."

* * *

Elsa sighed before she entered her room, dreading the solitude that faced her for the rest of the night. At once, she sat at her dresser and began undoing the ribbons in her hair. Out of instinct, she reached for the brush which normally laid on the edge of her table, but flinched as she caught hold of nothing.

"What-"

There was nothing on her dresser. It had been swept clean. Elsa leapt to her feet and swung open her closet. Where there were once dresses, now stood an empty hollow shell. She turned on her heels and raced downstairs; the sight of her parents standing in the living room stopped her in her tracks.

"All my belongings are gone."

"Aye," Gerda said, pointing at a satchel by the door, "we took the liberty of helping you pack."

"Pack?" Elsa asked, as the air turned chilly around her, "What's going on?"

"Look, things haven't been going well, I think you've had some time to think about it by now," Kai said.

"We're moving you to Pretzfeld, to be with aunt Miriam, at least until things quiet down around here," Gerda continued.

"What, that's it?" Elsa said, backing up against a wall, "No discussion, just... _move?_ "

"Well, we're having the discussion...now-"

"How long am I supposed to live there?"

"We don't know," Kai said, "it might be permanent."

"Does Anna know about this?"

"We haven't told her, she's not back from the well yet."

"Well, I'm not going until you do," Elsa snarled, crossing her arms, "otherwise she's going to think I abandoned her without saying a thing."

Just as Kai began to retort, Anna strode in, carrying a bucket of water.

"Why is the horse tied to our fence?" Anna asked, before she noticed the sombre faces, and Elsa's eyes starting to brim with tears, "What the hell is going on?"

"We're sending your sister away," Gerda answered, without hesitation

"What, now?" Anna asked, her face turning white, "How long?"

"Yes, right now - and we don't know how long she's going to be there for."

"No, you can't...you can't," Anna whimpered, as a tear slid down her face, "I won't see her again."

"You know what happened this morning, it won't be long before the entire town comes for her, and besides - you can always write each other."

"That's not enough," Anna groaned, as she fell into her sister's arms, "do you have to go?"

"It's the best for all of us," Elsa replied, taking in her sister's homely scent, "I don't want you or mom or dad to get hurt anymore protecting me."

Anna's voice dropped to a whisper, as her hands clutched at Elsa's dress, "Promise me you'll come back-"

"I will," Elsa replied, brushing her fingers through Anna's hair, "or we'll see each other somewhere else, or something. I don't want to live the rest of my life being apart from you."

"It's time to go," Kai said, motioning towards the door, "it's a long journey, if you leave now there's an inn by the river you can reach before dark."

Gerda picked up Elsa's bags, "We'll walk you to the gates."

The family shivered from the cold as they stepped into the street, save for Elsa. She stared at the enormous snowflake which blossomed beneath her feet, and hesitated. In the back of her mind, she tried to think of the last time she was out beneath the sky, until a tug on her arm roused her. More accustomed to a chair than a saddle, it took Elsa a few tries to mount her horse, but before long - the family set out beneath the glow of the setting sun.

Despite the normal bustle of townspeople heading home, silence filled the streets. Perhaps it was just too cold for people to be out at that time, but even the typical glow of paraffin lamps was absent from the window sills.

"It's quiet," Anna observed; her voice, and the clicking of horseshoes, were the only sounds which echoed through the streets. As they marched closer to the town's gates, the agony of separation grew on Elsa's shoulders, until snow began to drift around her. A snivel punctuated the silence, and a tear slipped from Anna's cheek, before it froze and shattered against the cobblestones.

"Something's wrong," Kai said, as he looked around at the darkness, "it's never this quiet so early-"

"We should hasten," Gerda said, tightening her grip on the horse's lead and walking ahead of Kai. She turned round the last corner leading into the town square, and stopped dead in her tracks.

"What-" Anna gasped, as she took in the sight of hundreds of townsfolk standing in the square, staring back at them, "Why the hell is everyone here?"

Elsa pursed her lips as she understood what it all meant; the pyre had already been set up in the centre - just one, this time.

 _It was too late._

The glow of their torches illuminated the air, and a man on horseback trotted forth before them. Anna recognised that reddish crop of hair and his piercing voice.

"Is that them?" Hans asked, and the monk by his feet nodded.

"Hear ye! Hear ye!" Hans shouted at the crowd, clanking a cowbell, "Before you stands the house of Oldenburg, who have been accused of harboring a practitioner of witchcraft! In our attempts to investigate the validity of such accusations, the leading man of the house viciously and deliberately attacked a member of the clergy! What say you, noble Bamberg-folk, should we do in recompense?"

A chorus of shouting erupted from the crowd; it rose in its pitch and intensity, until at its crescendo, the crowd surged forward like a swarm of locusts.

 _"_ _Burn her! Burn them! Burn them all!"_

Kai and Anna stepped forward to halt the crowd. Like pebbles before an avalanche, they were swept away by the rabble's fury.

* * *

A violent pain throbbed in Elsa's forehead as she came to. She ignored the vile taunting around her, and tried standing, only for strength to desert her, sending her crashing down again. The taste of blood filled her mouth, and in between her blurry vision, she observed Anna, Kai, and Gerda, strung up in the corner of the courtroom, with blood still dripping down their faces.

"Oh my god, no," Elsa muttered, her eyes falling upon Anna's broken body, blindfolded and bruised. She tried to reach out to her, but found her hands trussed like a spring chicken.

"You can't do this to them," Elsa said, only to slump so far forward that she falls out of her chair. A bailiff strode over and seated her upright again, in the middle of the courtroom, surrounded on all sides by her accusers.

" _Elsa Oldenburg is hereby accused of being a witch, bring forth the evidence!_ " Hans announced, without a trace of paperwork in front of him

The words barely registered in Elsa's ears, so virulent was the pain which plagued her head. She didn't even care that a bucket of snow had been dumped upon her, and then another, and another - until her entire body was shoulder-deep in sleet. Upon seeing the girl before them covered in snow, the crowd went quiet, before one lone voice shattered the silence.

"Look! That wretched witch be barely shivering!"

" _Witch! Witch! Witch!"_ The crowd continued jeering.

" _What?_ " Elsa said, brushing the snow from her face. The loosely-packed snow felt like warm sand around her, and the fevered shouting was so loud, it made even _thinking_ impossible.

"Alright, I've seen enough," Hans announced from the podium, his voice barely rising above the crowd's rancor, "Guilty of witchcraft, bring her outside to be burnt."

A pair of strong hands wrenched Elsa from amidst the snow, and dragged her outside into the townsquare. She began to struggle when she noticed the executioner had already finished stacking firewood around the pyre.

"No, no, you can't do this," Elsa muttered, her feeble struggling did nothing to slow her impending doom, "I swear I'm not a witch."

With every step closer to the pyre, Elsa's pleading increased in its ferocity, but fought as she could - nothing stopped her from being handed like a sack of potatoes to the executioner, who bound her facing the angry mob. The vile jeering beset her on all sides, and Elsa searched the crowd for anyone who could help her. The next thing she saw sent a chill into her spine: Anna had been brought out, her blindfold removed. Behind her stood Hans, gripping her by the hair. _He wanted Anna to watch what they were about to do to her sister._

" _Anna!_ " Elsa screamed, her shrill voice drowned out by the crowd's jeering, " _Don't look, please don't look-"_

From the pyre, Elsa saw her sister struggling against Hans's grasp. Blood still streamed from Anna's forehead, and her frantic screams were but a whisper amidst the throng of people baying for her blood.

" _Let her go, you monster,"_ Elsa seethed beneath her breath, oblivious to the men as they set the pyre alight. The oil-soaked wood ignited quickly, and tongues of fire leapt up around Elsa.

"No!" Elsa screamed, as clouds of smoke enveloped her, snuffing out the sight of Anna trapped in Hans's chokehold.

Accustomed to a lifetime of cold, Elsa never imagined how ferocious a blazing fire could be. The flames seared her limbs without mercy, and within seconds she silently pleaded for death. Soon, the white-hot pain pierced through to her bones, and silence deserted her. Despite her earlier wish not to cry out in pain for the sake of her family, Elsa unleashed a cry of anguish, and then a blood-curdling scream as the flames gnawed away at her skin and flesh.

In the back of her mind, Elsa saw her sister's once-jovial self being crushed beneath the weight of religious hysteria. She wept out loud as she saw Anna being forced to her knees, to witness her only sister torn away from her and burned alive.

A tongue of fire crept up Elsa's spine, unravelling her bonds and sending a shockwave of blistering agony which manifested as a scream from the bottom of her lungs. Torrents of pain assaulted her body without mercy, but with each passing second, every ounce of hurt and blazing agony felt more and more cold to her. The cold didn't make sense to her, until the flames died down and the air around her felt like the first day of winter.

A smouldering heap of wood and ice beneath her feet was all that remained, as Elsa opened her eyes to the crowd that stood before her. The townsfolk, earlier so virulent in their hatred, now backed away as Elsa looked at her ice-laced hands.

"She's alive! Her sorcery has delivered her from the flames!" A voice yelled from within the crowd, before the entire town erupted in fury once more, " _She's a witch!"_

"Fools!" Elsa shouted back, this time, the crowd fell silent, "How many have perished in my place?"

The smoke cleared as Elsa's ice spread further through the pyre. Burnt firewood crackled with frost, and before long, icy thorns grew amongst the branches, lending a menacing aura to Elsa as she stepped off the pyre. She hadn't noticed it, but her razed clothes had been overlaid with sheets of icy fabric. The crowd shifted away from her in a circle, fearful of the freezing wind that picked up around Elsa.

Her eyes searched the crowd, and Elsa's heart was crushed when she saw Anna's body limp within Hans's grasp. Her lips had turned blue, and Hans casted her body into the snow like it were a rag doll.

"Fear not the witch!" His voice boomed from the back of the crowd, "God will have His vengeance! Kill her!"

At his words, the crowd resumed its jeering, and descended upon Elsa in droves.

"You killed her," Elsa sputtered. Icy tears brimmed from her eyes, now locked onto Anna's body slumped on the ground.

Ice-magic rippled through the ground. The few people closest to Elsa were reduced to shreds of flesh and bone as icicles tore through their bodies. At that sight, the crowd's rage turned to fear in an instant, and then delirium. Darkness swarmed around Elsa as icy beasts, unresembling anything ever seen on earth, rose from the earth and devoured the townsfolk by the dozens. Maniacal screams filled the night sky as panic gripped the crowd. In their maddened haste to flee Elsa's beasts the townsfolk crushed each other in a frenzy, but the gates had already been frozen shut. Trapped before the unyielding wood, they pleaded towards the heavens for deliverance, and it came swiftly in the form of icy fangs and claws - turning the snow pink with blood. The executioner drew his sword and stepped towards Elsa, but, being driven mad by the sights which surrounded him, chose to fall on it instead.

" _Stop!_ " Hans yelled, as Elsa approached him with trembling fists. In his right hand clutched Anna's body, her face as white as snow, and in his left, a knife, pressed against her neck, "Move one step closer and I'll spill her blood on God's earth."

An icy winged beast, resembling half-falcon and half-dragon, swooped down in the darkness and tore Hans away from Anna. The force of its grasp also tore him to pieces.

"Anna, no!" Elsa cried, as she cradled the younger girl's body to herself, amidst the pink snow. Elsa's hands trembled without pause, until she felt Anna's laboured breathing against her face.

"I couldn't, I couldn't," Anna muttered, a trail of blood leaking from her mouth and nose, "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

"No, you did," Elsa replied, shielding her sister's eyes from the carnage around her, "you were all I could think about while I was trapped in there."

Elsa looked around her; the snow creatures now resembled mounds of snow surrounded by dismembered remains. There wasn't a trace of life left in the square, save for Kai and Gerda, who limped toward them. The wounded parents stood a few yards away from their children. Elsa sighed in relief when she saw that they were still alive, but their next words shattered what little hope it gave her.

"Anna," Kai whispered, his voice like a knife in the silence, " _Get away from her."_

Ice formed on Elsa's hands, and she recoiled from Anna, as though the slightest touch would've killed her.

"No," Anna pleaded, clinging onto Elsa's dress, " _Don't._ "

"I don't want to hurt-"

"I'm not afraid," Anna pleaded, pressing a palm to Elsa's chest, "y-you're everything to me."

"Anna!" Gerda called out, as she covered her nose from the stench of blood, "Come here!"

"I should go, there's no place for me here anymore," Elsa stammered, each word cutting into her heart. After being burned alive, she never imagined something else could hurt her as much - but this did.

"No, no! Y-you can't go, please, please don't leave me," Anna begged, the tears mixing with her blood and leaving a scarlet trail down her neck, "Where will you go?"

"Somewhere safe," Elsa said, wiping Anna's face, "Somewhere I can't hurt anyone anymore."

"Please don't-"

"Goodbye, Anna," Elsa whispered. Unwilling to watch her parents turn their back on her, Elsa clasped her hands around Anna's, before she turned and fled, each stride leaving snowflakes in the wake of her grief.

* * *

Elsa stirred awake to the tweeting of birds and the softness of snow beneath her. Sunlight refracted through the crystal steeple she had built over her bedchamber, and painted a multi-coloured tapestry on her wall. The Ice Queen's lips curled into a smile as she noticed how the shapes resembled a heart, and only she knew what that meant.

Despite being accustomed to idle luxury, the Queen leapt from her bed and tidied her hair with glee. Her hands began to shake as she studded snowflakes of different sizes into her braid, and dressed herself in azure blue - like the sky they played under, when times were good. She looked at the pair of gloves still on her dresser, and pondered.

 _Maybe not today._

Her heart was pounding in her throat by the time she reached the grand concourse; the ice turned into a brilliant hue of violet as she shoved the door open. A lone figure knelt by the fireplace, already alight and brimming with firewood. Elsa's heart soared at the sight, but she remained a steely grip on the railings.

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting," Elsa said, her voice echoing around the concourse.

The girl bolted upright, dropping a stack of firewood; she dashed forward, only to slip on the ice.

"Elsa!" Anna squealed, trying to maintain her balance on the ice, "Wait...c-can I come closer?"

Elsa folded her hands behind her back. Years have passed, but the memory of what she's capable of still festered in her mind. Today, though - something else took precedence.

"J-just stay there," Elsa said, as she stepped onto the ornate, crystal staircase, "I'll come to you."

"G-great! And wow, look at you!" Anna said, taking in the sight of her sister's ice-gown, its train draping the stairs, "I don't think I could ever forget that. Not that I want to, I mean-"

"It's nothing," Elsa smirked, hesitating to use the words _I wore it for you,_ "How are mother and father doing?"

"They're great!" Anna chirped, "Arendelle is a wonderful place to live in. Such lovely people."

"You...you still haven't told them, have you?" Elsa queried, as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

"No," Anna replied, looking down at her reflection in the ice, "they don't know I've been coming here."

Elsa paused, lamenting the gravity of Anna's words. Did they know she was still alive? Did they even care? Elsa's gaze fell upon Anna's slim frame, her eyes betraying the sheer excitement of seeing her sister again - and the Queen's fears evaporated.

"That's alright," Elsa said, forgetting about her fears and just _longing_ to be nearer to Anna, "I can't control what they think, or feel, about me."

"You should come back," Anna replied, as she quivered in her place. The girl wondered if it was the cold, or just Elsa coming closer to her. Before long, she finally made out the blues in her eyes - those brilliant eyes which saw her to sleep each night no matter what strange town she happened to pass through.

"I don't think it'd-"

"They talk about you all the time," Anna said, stopping Elsa in her footsteps, "they miss you, Elsa. We miss you. _I miss you._ All the time."

Elsa clutched at the train of her gown. Her lips began to tremble as she thought about the pain her parents must have felt. In the few years all that mattered to Elsa was the way she had been torn from her sister because of what she did, but it never occurred that the burning affected everyone - even her parents. They were only doing what they could, not to lose another daughter.

"Maybe I will go back," Elsa said, looking around at the splendour of her castle. She built it with the intention of keeping herself safe, but she was really keeping the world safe from herself. Leaving her sanctuary would be like razing it to the ground.

" _When I'm ready,"_ Elsa added. She hadn't realised it, but she had come within an arm's length from Anna. The realisation sent her heart fluttering.

"We'll always be there for you," Anna whispered, looking up into her sister's eyes, "I'm not afraid of you, I never was."

Elsa inhaled her sister's scent. The fragrance set her senses alight with joy.

"Can I…" Anna whispered, as she shifted nearer still, "Can I hug you?"

The last hesitation in Elsa's mind faded into warmth as she pulled the girl into her arms. Over the years, she had been looking for safety from her past and from the inexplicable power within her grasp, but she never thought she would find it in Anna's arms.


	3. the princess amongst the peasants

**A/N: Contains minor Anti-Semitic statements. Views not my own.  
**

Yekaterinburg, Russia, 10th July 1918

Despite the warmth, the girl pulls a shawl over her mouth as she stands in the backyard, perhaps to keep the swamp stench out of her face as a breeze picks up. A slurring voice echoes behind her in the damp air.

"What the hell you doing, princess?" the voice, laced with alcohol, repeats itself, each repetition struggling harder beneath a haze of vodka.

Anna turns from the garble and stares at the fence separating her from the immense swathe of darkness ahead. A lantern, perched on the rotting wood - illuminates a scrawl of Cyrillic graffitied into the fence.

THE DOGS WILL RAVISH YOUR ROYAL CUNT AFTER WE'RE DONE WITH YOU.

She shudders and steps back, her heart sinking like a lead weight. The voice starts again, merely a stone's throw from her. She flinches at its proximity.

"Why you out so late, your highness, you looking for some fun?"

Anna makes out a shadow in the fog stumbling towards her, before it trips over a chair and lands face first in the mud. A chorus of snoring ensues. Anna's skin crawls with fear at the darkness before her, threatening to swallow her whole in its jaws. Even greater, is the impending doom awaiting her.

As surely as the sun would rise tomorrow, death will destroy her. Death and desecration. Preferably in that order. Would it be any more honorable if she shares in the same fate as her family? It will be just be one more warm body for the Bolsheviks to defile. Casting a glance over her shoulder, Anna starts off with a trot, before picking up her pace. The loose petticoat makes it easy for her to mount the wood and hurl herself over the palisade.

Shrieking, she slips on the dew-soaked soil and tumbles, over and over until she collides with a tree. At once, she leaps to her feet, spitting bits of grass caught in her mouth. The tree branches scratch her face when she starts off into the darkness, but nothing could stop her desperate flight away from the shouting echoing behind her.

"I'll come back for you," Anna whispers, choking back a sob, although she doesn't really know if those words were meant for her family, or to comfort the throbbing in her chest.

* * *

Sunlight drapes the girl lying face-down on the porch. Save for the gentle heave of her chest, one would've mistaken her for another poor sod who starved to death before reaching the nearest soup kitchen. A Babushka emerges from the front door and curses at the sight.

"Another fucking one," she swears, shielding her eyes from the sun's glare, "get lost! Get out of here!"

The girl barely stirs at the abuse, so she picks up the nearest broom and prods at her.

"Girl! If you're dead I don't have space to bury you, if you're alive I don't have food to feed you, so piss off, whatever you are!"

Nothing replies the woman's tirade, so she raises her foot to kick her off the porch, until a glint catches her eye. After years of toiling surrounded by soil and wood, the sight of something as alien as jewelry stops her in her tracks. The rising sun's rays catches in the diamond earrings again, scattering its rays against the porch's decaying wood. To her, it looks like pearls strewn in the mud.

"Impossible," she mutters, before laying down her broom and dragging the girl inside.

* * *

Apart from the sound of slurping, the house is silent. The Babushka stares at Anna as she eats, keeping an eye on the diamond earrings and pendant around her neck.

"Thank you," Anna mutters, her voice trembling.

"Pleasure, darling," she replies, "been long since you ate?"

"Days," Anna says, pointing at her bowl, "this is delicious though, what is it?"

The Babushka raises an eyebrow at her, and asks, "you don't know what you're eating?"

Anna looks down at the brown, granulated slop in front of her, and shakes her head.

"It's Kasha, you've never eaten Kasha before?"

"No, it would be nice with some butter, though."

The woman rolls her eyes, and continues sipping her tea. A plodding sound echoes from the porch, which sends Gerda to her feet, but she relaxes at the sight of a blonde girl hauling a bucket of water up the steps. She sets down her burden and gasps at the sight of a stranger at the kitchen table, only to get pushed back into the porch.

"Wait, Elsa," Gerda mutters, shutting the door behind her, "don't come in yet."

"Who..who is that?" Elsa asks, peering into the house.

"She showed up half-dead on our doorstep while you were at the well," Gerda says, dropping her voice to a whisper, "one of the Romanovs."

"Wait, what?" Elsa gasps, narrowing her eyes, "how do you know?"

"She must've escaped from the Bolsheviks at Yekaterinburg, with her jewelry and all," Gerda says, pointing at her earlobes, "one diamond could feed us for a year."

"But how do you know it's really one of them?"

"They used to have a portrait of the Tsar's family at the church," Gerda says, "this one looks like Princess Anna."

"You mean you don't know?"

"Sometimes it's better not to know," Gerda smirks, "if the Reds find out we're harboring a royal, we'll get shot."

"And if the Whites find out?"

"We'll get shot anyway, they shoot everyone."

"Well, we could just...ask her, there isn't much harm in that," Elsa says.

Gerda pauses and thinks, before muttering, "Fine," and throwing open the door.

The two girls freeze at the sight of each other; one, dressed in rags with a handkerchief tied around her blonde braids, and the other, in her mud-stained silk petticoat.

"Uhm, hello," Elsa says, curtsying to the other girl, "I am Elsa, and this is my grandmother, Gerda. We work on this farm."

Anna stares back at them, before biting on her lip. She looks deep into Elsa's eyes, and tries to think of something to say, but finds herself unable to utter a word.

"What brings you here?" Elsa prods.

The last few days flash before Anna's eyes: being tormented by the sun by day and the barking of pursuing hounds at night.

"I...I got lost," Anna stammers.

"Lost? Where'd you get lost from?"

Anna's eyes dart left and right, before replying, "From home."

Elsa sighs, and pulls a chair next to Anna.

"Look, we don't want any trouble," Elsa whispers, putting a hand on Anna's lap, "Just tell us, are you Princess Anastasia Romanov?"

The touch of Elsa's hand to her knee causes her to relax in the chair, but still, she clenches her teeth at her own name being uttered, and answers, "Uh, no?"

Elsa tightens her grasp on the girl's knee.

"Please, you know things aren't going well around Russia now, and everyone thinks they can do better than the other, even if it means spilling the blood of innocent people. We are only alive because we are common folk with nothing to offer but kindness just like what Gerda has given to you. There's nothing we want in return, except your honesty with us. If you are unable to extend even this simple courtesy, you will find us hard-pressed to extend the same to you."

Anna stares back at Elsa. Her tutors had told her that peasants were an illiterate bunch, beholden to alcohol and enamored with religion. The string of eloquence coming from a simply-dressed girl like Elsa took her by surprise.

"So, are you princess Anastasia?" Gerda asks.

Anna scratches her nails against the chair. Her throat clenches, before she nods.

"Holy Christ," Gerda mutters, making the sign of the cross, "I didn't think it was actually real."

"Are...are you going to send me away?" Anna asks, daring to look into Elsa's eyes.

"They're probably looking for you now, aren't they?" Elsa asks, "the Bolsheviks."

"Yes."

"And they'll kill you?"

"They will bring me back to Yekaterinburg, and they will kill me with the rest of my family. This I know for sure, at least before the Whites show up."

Gerda steps between Elsa and Anna, "But what do you intend to do? It's not like you can keep running for the rest of your life, can you?"

Anna's heart clenches as she ponders the alternatives; endlessly running from her captors or being raped and mown down by gunfire in some prison. The feeling of being trapped between the two, and of her sisters who have no such choice, sends a pang of grief into her chest.

"Please, please don't throw me out," Anna whispers, her chest heaving at each word. She grips the chair in a vain attempt to hold back her tears. Nausea overwhelms her senses, but she finds herself falling into Elsa's arms.

Elsa soothes the quivering body in her arms. Her dress begins to go damp from the warmth of Anna's tears spreading into the fabric. In the back of her mind, she ponders the stories of how corrupt and incompetent the royals were, far away in their lofty palaces with hardly a care for the people they were supposed to look after. Now, they have fallen so far from their majesty, into a pig farm. Her arms tighten around Anna as she imagines their cronyism and mysticism having something to do with everything she's lost so far: her family, their land, their hope of a better future. A part of Elsa longs to discard the sobbing mess in her arms, in retribution for every bit of poverty and bloodshed they have wrought upon the country and herself, but the thump of Anna's heart against her chest compels her otherwise.

She was human too.

"No," Elsa whispers, smoothing Anna's tousled red hair, "I won't." She looks to Gerda.

"Take her away and give her something to wear," Gerda orders, "she sticks out worse than a sore thumb wearing these clothes around here."

Elsa brings Anna into a bathroom; no more than a room with a wooden tub. She draws a bath for her and orders the still-sobbing girl to take off her clothes. Anna complies, and hands over her petticoat, a silk blouse, and a whalebone corset. The immense weight of the corset sends Elsa staggering. She runs her fingers over the silk, and makes out jewelry stitched into the fabric, but keeps silent. Instead, her eyes widen as Anna slips off her chemise and allows it to pool around her ankles. She had always imagined the royal family to be fat beasts who gorged themselves on caviar blinis and never knew a day's work. But this, this, is different. The breath catches in Elsa's chest as her eyes rove along the gentle curve of Anna's freckled bosom, down her svelte waist and hips. Her skin is impossibly smooth and fair, and Elsa bites down on her lip as she thinks about how it'd feel beneath her fingertips.

"Thank you," Anna whispers, wiping the tears from her eyes, "for helping me."

Anna's words snatch her attention. Elsa tucks a fringe behind her ear and tears her gaze away from Anna, before muttering.

"Please go easy on the soap, we don't have much."

Elsa draws the curtain to the bathroom and flings her back against wall, clutching a pile of dirty clothes. The image of Anna's naked body still burns behind her eyeballs, and she doesn't realize, until Gerda pinches her beet-red cheeks, just how hard she's breathing.

"What's the matter?" Gerda whispers, _"Never seen a naked princess before?"_

* * *

Creak.

Elsa opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling. Her muscles burn with fatigue from a day's work, and the darkness begs her eyelids to return them to slumber. She shuts her eyes, but imagines hearing a muffled sob in the silence. She lies still and tries to ignore it, but something tugs at her heart, even though she can't really explain what. Elsa turns and whispers into the darkness.

"Are you alright there?"

There's no answer, save for another muffled sob.

"Why don't you come here?" Elsa whispers, not really knowing why she said it. She holds her breath, listening to the creak creak of floorboards until a warm body slips in next to hers.

"Still not used to sleeping on hay?" Elsa asks, "It's almost a month now."

The voice replying her is muffled and stuttery, "I wouldn't be able to sleep on a bed of feathers, even if I tried."

Elsa's eyes adjust to the darkness; illuminated by a ray of moonlight peeking through the wall, she makes out Anna's glistening eyes.

"It's your family, isn't it?" Elsa asks

"Yes."

Clenching her fists, Elsa tries not to think about how the joke of a royal family deserves to be alive, but she purses her lips.

"They're probably dead," Anna continues, her chest trembling with each word, "but sometimes it's not knowing what happened to them that feels awful."

Elsa grits her teeth.

"I knew what happened to mine," Elsa whispers, clenching her fists and trying not to remember, "to my parents, and my siblings. In fact, I saw it all happen before my eyes. I wish I didn't know what happened to them, but I do, and trust me, it doesn't make it feel any less awful."

Despite Elsa's earlier attempts not to recall the massacre, she does. Shutting her eyes just burns the memory ever so brightly into her consciousness. A tear slides down Elsa's cheek, and her lips begin to tremble.

"I'm sorry," Anna whispers, slipping her arms around Elsa's waist, "I shouldn't have ran away, it's all so stupid."

Elsa screws her eyes shut and waits for the familiar feeling to overwhelm her: the gnawing panic in her chest, the running and hiding in the nearest corner out of sight where she could cry and cry until her tears would wash away the sight of blood and crumpled bodies from her brain. She holds her breath and anticipates it, but there's nothing. Nothing save for the gentle rise and fall of Anna's chest and the gentle breathing on her neck.

Anna's arm draped across her chest begins to weigh down on her, but Elsa hesitates to push it away, afraid that everything would come flooding back once it's gone. Instead, she turns and whispers,

"You can sleep with me if it makes you feel better."

But the girl has already started snoring.

* * *

Anna shrieks as the wagon goes over a bump, eliciting a chuckle from Elsa. After toiling for months and living on next to nothing, Anna could've never imagined that a mere pair of diamond earrings could buy something as life-changing as a wagon. It ploughed the fields and carried their produce to town and delivered supplies for their neighbors. The memory of her mother using those precious stones as paperweights strewn across the documents in her study, makes Anna shudder.

"We're almost here," Elsa says, pointing at the festival tent being set up in the square, "Are you excited?"

"Nearly, more nervous," Anna answers, "I haven't seen the world for so long it's almost scary to wonder how fast things change."

Elsa looks at Anna in her lavender dress, and flowers tucked in her hair. Her beauty is timeless, and it pains Elsa to imagine that this is the same Princess Anastasia - the daughter of corrupt royals who single-handedly destroyed the country and her life.

"You look pretty today," Elsa mutters, surprised she'd say anything like that.

"You look pretty too," Anna answers, putting her head on Elsa's shoulder, "all day, everyday, especially when your arms are elbows deep in filth."

Elsa hesitates, before inhaling the scent of Anna's hair. Despite toiling as much as everyone else and bathing as little as them, she still smelled intoxicating - like a field of flowers in bloom.

"Oh my god, I hear something," Anna jerks upright and catches sight of a crowd of townspeople making merry in the square, "A festival!"

"That's what we're here for," Elsa smiles, tidying the ribbons in Anna's hair, "Go ahead, I'll get some crepes for you."

Gerda wobbles in her seat as Anna leaps off the cart. The girl pauses by her tent, before she's swept away by it all, the noise, the music, the dancing and the smell of common folk and vodka. Having lived in a sombre palace and a prison for most of her life, the merry crowd in all its rancor feels like a different planet to her.

"She's a good girl," Gerda says, stopping the horses by a watering trough, "even if she is just another mouth to feed."

Elsa steps off the cart, her eyes fixed on Anna dancing with some children.

"Look, Elsa," Gerda says, nudging the girl to face her, "I...I know you like Anna."

Elsa looks deep into Gerda's eyes, pondering what she means.

"I have no children left, but you," Gerda says, "and her."

"That's funny," Elsa smirks, "I remember you saying you were keeping her until her jewelry dried up."

"You think I'm old and stubborn," Gerda replies, tying the horses' bridle to the wall, "that might be true, but that doesn't mean I can't be wrong."

"Wrong about what?"

Gerda looks back at her granddaughter and chuckles, before patting her on the back, "Go have fun, I'll see if I can score a barrel of vodka."

Elsa shrugs, before sauntering to the tent and placing down coins for some food. She receives a stack of savory crepes stuffed in a roll of newspaper and tries to jostle for a spot to sit on the benches. She never remembers the Maslenitsa festival being this jovial, but these are dark times in Russia, and the people need something to live for, since no one knows when is their turn to get destroyed by war or destitution. The noise of music from her childhood puts a smile on Elsa's face, but she notices a pair of eyes watching her through the crowd.

It starts moving towards her, and she stands when the man reaches her.

"Hello, Hans," Elsa says, as they bow to one another in tradition, "I trust you've been well."

"Comrade Hans," he reminds her, pointing at the badge on his collar denoting him as a party commissar, "we are now living in the glorious age of socialist revolution."

"My family and their land have already been taken away," Elsa mutters, "I don't suppose the party is coming after my crepes as well?"

"Counter-revolutionary ideals are things of the past," Hans points out, sticking his finger in the air, "your old bourgeoisie ways have been relieved by the party, and it is a pity your tongue appears to be infected with the insolent speech of the capitalists and those who yearn for the old days."

"What do you want from me?" Elsa asks, looking at Hans's boots. She could make out her face in them.

"I have been appointed as party chief of the district," he smirks, pausing to wait for Elsa to fawn over the fact. He scowls when she doesn't.

"Everything which happens here is now under my personal responsibility, it is a debt I owe to the motherland," Hans says, "so naturally that includes you."

"Great," Elsa mutters, "And?"

"Your grandmother appears to have bought a new cart lately," Hans says, pointing at the horses by the wall, "from our records, your farm's agricultural export was not significantly higher than the quota."

His words send a chill into Elsa's spine.

"No," Elsa says, clutching the hem of her dress and trying to speak as naturally as she could, "we've been saving some money for awhile. It was easier to get to town on the old plot."

"I don't mean to be nosey," Hans continues, "but it is my duty to rid the country of its old bourgeoisie ways, including the hoarding of grain or money. Soon, laws will be passed that will eliminate the Kulaks altogether, and a true classless society will emerge amongst the peasantry."

Elsa's eyes dart left and right, "that will be the last significant thing we're buying for a while, things aren't going so well."

"For your family?"

"Y-yes." Elsa stutters.

"For you and Baba Gerda?"

Elsa swallows hard. She casts an eye on the sight of Anna dancing in the tent, and begins to sweat, even in the frosty spring air.

"Yes."

Elsa gasps as Hans throws an arm around her shoulders and swivels her to face the merrymaking crowd. He points at Anna, and her heart begins to pound.

"I saw you come here on your fancy new wagon with Gerda and another girl," he says, his finger drawing a circle in the air, "that one."

"Yes," she says, struggling beneath his tightening grip.

"Never seen her around here before," Hans snarls, "care to enlighten me who she is?"

Stuck in a headlock, Elsa's tear-soaked gaze drifts to Han's other hand, clasped around a revolver. If Anna's identity is made known, he could walk over there right now and blow Anna's brains out all over the ground for glory, and given how many people have been executed of late, no one would pause their dancing. The thought sends a tangible bolt of terror flashing before Elsa's eyes, and she never realizes until now just how devastating losing Anna would be.

"She...She's my sister," Elsa lies. She looks down at her muddied boots, and her eyes widen at the sight of ice forming on them.

"That's strange," Hans snarls right into Elsa's ear, "I never knew you had a sister."

"She's my only sister left," Elsa snarls back, as ice spreads through her palms, "everyone else is dead."

"Maybe we should take a look at the-" Hans says, before a blistering frost bites into his arm. He recoils from Elsa, and wipes at his cheek, expecting to see blood, but finds only ice.

"D-Did you just bite me?" Hans asks, rubbing his jaw.

Elsa crosses her arms, and shakes her head. The party chief of the district spits in the snow, turns on his heels and leaves, knocking over a drunk peasant on his way from the tent. Looking down at her palms, Elsa rubs at the ice on her fingers and tries to make sense of why it feels like warm sand to her, but a gentle voice interrupts her thoughts.

"Is everything alright?" Anna asks, holding a pitcher of Kvass, "you look...shook."

The sight of Anna's reddened cheeks warms Elsa's heart, and she invites the girl to sit with her.

"It's nothing, just ran into a friend," Elsa says, "he's kind of a dick now."

"Well, that's what men are, aren't they?" Anna replies, passing Elsa her drink, "Cheer up and have a drink. I hope you don't mind me eating your crepes."

"No, please don't stand on ceremony," Elsa says, feeding her a crepe. The sight of Anna chewing with glee sends a ripple of hurt through her being as she ponders just how painful it would be to lose her.

"You're pretty much family to us already," Elsa continues, ruffling a hand through Anna's hair. The girl smiles back at Elsa and she grips the bench, reminiscing about the fear of nearly losing her. An overwhelming feeling falls upon Elsa; the same feeling she felt when Gerda held her back as the soldiers machine gunned her parents. That desperate feeling of wanting to protect someone she cares for.

"Oh, the crepes are much better here!" Anna says, as she shovels the last one down her throat.

"Yes they are," Elsa says, taking Anna's hands in her own and rubbing them for warmth. All of a sudden, Anna lets out a gasp and grips back, and Elsa's eyes widen as she watches the joy in her face fade into disbelief, and sorrow, all within a matter of seconds.

"Anna?" Elsa asks, putting an arm around her shoulder, as the girl chokes out a sob, "Anna, what's wrong?"

Elsa perches the pitcher of Kvass on the greasy newspaper fluttering around on the bench. Despite Anna's previous efforts to teach her how to read, Elsa still struggles to make out the Cyrillic letters. Anna turns and buries her face into Elsa's shoulder.

"Р-о-м-а́-н-о-в-ы, (Romanov)" Elsa spells out the letters in her head, before the blood in her face drains at the realization what the words on the newspaper meant.

"Oh my god, Anna I'm so sorry."

As Elsa clutches the sobbing girl to herself, she imagines seeing her parents die all over again.

* * *

With a grunt, Elsa tugs at the weed until the earth yields its roots. A breeze picks up, and she stands up straight to enjoy the crisp air billowing through her hair. Surrounded waist-high by wheat, her chest aches when she spots another figure a stone's throw from her, hunched over as she frantically weeded the fields. Despite being less experienced, Anna's basket was already full of torn roots from a morning of weeding. Elsa sighs as she remembers how Anna used to ask that they do everything together, even mundane tasks like this. The distance between them is palpable.

Elsa's eyes widen as she watches the girl pulling out a particularly deep-rooted weed. The root system emerges from the earth in one long tug, exposing more and more of its tendrils as it leads Anna towards a canal.

"Wait, Anna, no!" Elsa cries, as Anna stumbles her way towards the ditch, ripping up the roots as she goes. She darts through the wheat, and snatches the collar of Anna's dress right as she slips on the mud.

"What's wrong with you?" Elsa yells, only for Anna to whirl around to face her, with tears in her eyes. The girl's lips begin to tremble.

"I have nothing left," Anna whispers, fighting to speak amidst the sobbing, "nothing! I wish I was there to die with them. It was a cowardly, stupid thing to run away."

Elsa clenches her fists as she recollects hiding in a drain for two days as the rain pelted her and the putrefying corpses of her family laid less than ten yards away. Elsa remembers pleading with the heavens at every rumble of thunder to strike her with lightning so that she could share in their fate. That singular point of despair was only alleviated when Gerda reached into the filth and dragged her out.

"You have us," Elsa says, looking at the soil beneath her feet, "I hope that counts for something."

"I don't deserve you," Anna says. The sunlight catches in a tear sliding down her cheek.

"You don't choose the families you were born into, I had as a much of a chance being a princess as you did." Elsa says, taking a step closer to Anna, "I don't think you chose which porch to end up half-dead on either."

Anna wipes the tears from her eyes.

"What am I to you, then?" Anna asks, "A sister?"

A flurry of emotions well up in Elsa's chest as she ponders the girl's question. Over the past year, she never imagined Anna seeing her as anything other than a sister. The question takes her by surprise. Elsa stares into Anna's eyes and imagines seeing the faintest spark of desire glowing within.

"Maybe," Elsa answers, the word catching in her breath, "Maybe something else, I don't know."

"What, then?" Anna asks, her chest heaving with anticipation, "You need to tell me."

It's already October, but heat still courses through Elsa's face as Anna takes a step closer. The pounding in her chest intensifies with each second between them.

"I don't know," Elsa mutters.

"You don't know?" Anna asks, her voice breaking again, "You've known me for a year and you don't know? Maybe I'm nothing to you, is that it?"

Elsa locks eyes with Anna. In a flash, the accusation sends a tidal wave of pent up desire surging within Elsa. She closes the gap and crushes her lips into Anna's, pouring every ounce of her longing into the kiss. Paralyzed by the sudden surge of heat spreading across her face, Anna finds it difficult to control a single muscle in her body, save for dropping her basket of weeds and pulling Elsa deeper into the kiss, as though every fiber of her body longs to be consumed by her.

"No you're not," Elsa says, lips still smoldering like coals, "you're everything to me."

This time, Anna tiptoes and pulls the other girl into a kiss. Filled with a newfound hunger, Anna pulls too hard and drags Elsa down into the wheat. The scarf around Anna's chin comes loose, exposing the pale freckled skin on her neck. Elsa catches sight of this and gets drawn into kissing it.

"Oh my god," Anna moans, burying her fingers into Elsa's hair, "I've wanted you for so long."

Elsa's hands begin to tremble as she realizes Anna is offering herself to her. The past year saw countless nights of keeping her hands to herself, fearful of straying anywhere further than innocent pecks on Anna's cheek, afraid of arousing a forbidden desire in herself. This is over, and the look in Anna's eyes begs Elsa to take her.

"You've always had me," Elsa whispers against Anna's skin, each syllable sending pulses of electricity down her spine.

Elsa pauses, and allows Anna to sit upright. The girl looks over her shoulder, and realizes there's nothing but wheat around them for miles. When she looks back at Elsa, there's a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"It's just us," Elsa says, untying the scarf around her neck, "no one else."

She's seen it before many times, but this time, when the sunlight falls upon Elsa's naked body, Anna's entire being trembles with a potent energy, like she's been allowed to gaze upon the form of a goddess. To her, Elsa has a natural beauty gifted by the heavens, devoid of any cosmetics or finery, just laid out bare for only one person to see.

"You are absolutely beautiful," Anna gasps, watching the shifting clouds paint silhouettes onto Elsa's radiant skin. Lost in the searing heat of Elsa's touch, Anna doesn't even realize until the wind picks up again - just how naked and vulnerable both of them are in the field. The autumn breeze casts waves into the grain, oblivious to the two tangled bodies shifting about in an intricate dance of ecstasy.

Anna gasps, one final time, clutching at stalks of wheat between her fingers. She looks at the figure astride her, sunlight peeking through her tousled blonde hair, and shimmering on her skin.

"I've never felt this way before," Anna whispers, "y-you're magical."

Elsa doesn't even need to hear it. She could feel it, in the burning fire between her legs and in the glowing pleasure which touched every nerve ending in her body. She still feels it, even as her trembling fingers fumble with doing up the buttons on Anna's dress, and when they intertwine their fingers on the walk back, still slick with sweat and arousal. Their fingers touch again when they do the dishes together after supper, and Anna slips her hand into Elsa's beneath the sink full of dishwater.

Their foreheads touch.

Eyelids flutter shut.

Their lips curl into a smile.

Gerda stares at them, with her hands on her hips.

"Seriously, what's going on with both of you today?"

* * *

"Would you like some help with that, darling?" Anna asks.

Elsa turns and sees the other woman scampering up the stairs. She heaves the laundry basket up into her arms, and sighs.

"For the last time, I'm not that old, I've spent way longer in the fields than you,"

"That's why," Anna replies, with a wink, "the last twenty years must've worn out your joints."

"Still fit as a fiddle," Elsa claims, flexing an arm to prove her point, "and so are you."

"I wouldn't be," Anna says, following the blonde into their bedroom, "if you never found me."

"Technically, I didn't," Elsa says, drawing the curtains and pointing at a single, solitary gravestone in their yard.

They stare at Gerda's resting place, their silence reflecting the memory of Gerda's ceaseless love towards them over the past decades. However, the smoke rising in the west draws their attention away. Recently, it became too much to ignore: the constant thunder of war, the streams of refugees fleeing past their farm, rumors of the terrible tide of fascism coming from a far-away empire flung upon them by a madman. For months they tried their best to pretend like nothing was going to harm their idyllic lives.

Until now.

"It looks like they're on their way here," Anna points out the dark grey specks on the horizon moving towards them.

The figures appear as a advancing column, riding on their armored vehicles and motorcycles.

"They're not stopping," Elsa comments. Fear begins to surge through her veins.

"But what would they want with us?" Anna ponders aloud, "We're just farmers."

"We should hide," Elsa says, gripping the hem of her dress, "remember that storm shelter we built behind-"

"I don't think they're regular soldiers," Anna mutters, pointing at the state car driving amongst the troops, "they would've shelled us from afar."

"Maybe they're looking for Jews," Elsa says, her lips trembling, "I heard they round them all up and shoot them. We should get out of here."

"What're you afraid of? We're not Jews."

"Maybe they'll kill us all the same," Elsa says. She could make out the men on the motorbikes now, with their black helmets and gas masks, sporting sub-machine guns.

"Maybe they're just checking on us," Anna says, turning on her heels, "I'm going downstairs to see what this is all about."

Before Elsa can say another word, the girl disappears down the stairs.

"No, don't!" Elsa exclaims. Fear grips her, but even greater is the fear of leaving Anna alone to face the men. She rushes down and throws open the door in time for the motorcade of steel to pull up by their doorstep.

An officer emerges from the car, clad in a leather trench coat with medals overflowing from his uniform. All around the cottage stands men and machinery, all bristling with weapons. The swastikas emblazoned on their vehicles, once the object of scorn and derision in the newspapers, now takes on a menacing lifelike form to them. To Anna and Elsa, the entire scene looks like it comes from another planet.

The German officer tips his peaked cap at the women.

"I do apologize for the unscheduled manner of our visit," he announces in English, stuffing a leather briefcase beneath his arm, "we have been rather busy of late and sometimes the timing doesn't suit war."

Not knowing a word he just said, Elsa and Anna stare at him, and then at the men disembarking their vehicles. He turns and asks one of the soldiers a question.

"Alas," the officer says, "how foolish of me, I have also come here unprepared. My interpreter has been injured and left behind at the front. I don't suppose either of you lovely ladies would happen to speak English, would you, or French, perhaps?"

The words make no sense to either of them, but Anna steps forward.

"Herr, ich kann Deutsche sprechen," Anna quips. _(Sir, I can speak German)_

Elsa's lips part in shock. The officer's expression hardens at her.

"Aber du bist Russich?" _(but you are Russian?)_

"Ja. Ich habe in meiner Jugend Deutsch gelernt." _(Yes. I learnt German in my youth)_

He smirks at Anna, and continues in German

"Two women of child-bearing age on a farm and no men, what's going on?"

Anna frowns, "The men have gone to get killed by your tanks and planes, we are what's left."

Elsa's lips part further at the fluent German coming from Anna. The officer raises an eyebrow, and reaches into his briefcase.

"Well, my lovely Fraulein, we are not here looking for a man, but we are looking for a special woman, and all the intelligence we have received points us here," he shows Anna a page from a folder, and she gasps at the sight of her own picture clipped to its corner. Elsa catches her when she stumbles backwards.

"It has been awhile, Princess Anna," he continues in German, replacing the folder, "you may think that Russia has forgotten you, but the world hasn't."

Elsa looks at the officer, speaking a foreign language to Anna. She hasn't the slightest clue what's going on, and frowns at them.

"There is a new Russia being built, one that is pure and free from the Bolshevism it has surrendered itself to. A glorious Russia which will no longer be slave to the conspiracies of the international Jewry. Princess Anna, there is a place for you at the forefront of this liberated Russia. The time has come now for you to right the wrongs that the communists have heaped upon your family and upon this country."

Anna stares at officer, his words swirling around in her head. The men flinch when an artillery shell explodes in the distance.

Anna grits her teeth, "Was wollen Sie von mir? Diese Tage sind lange vorbei." _(What do you want from me? Those days are long over)_

"You are the last surviving member of the house of Romanov and heir to the Russian Throne. You must come with us at once to St Petersburg. Or, as the Bolsheviks used to call it - Stalingrad."

At once, Anna's memory jogs back to her childhood in the winter palace. The carefree days of playing hide and seek in the halls and the smell of Borscht at dinnertime.

"Why?" Anna asks.

"In our crusade against Bolshevism, we have deemed the Communist revolution to be an illegitimate act of treason against the rightful leaders of Russia. Supplanted by the conspiracy of international Jewry, your family was gunned down in cold blood, but now is the time to avenge their deaths and take your place as Queen of the new Russia."

The officer extends a gloved hand, clad in black leather. Anna pauses and reminisces about the palace halls; the plush carpet beneath her bare feet and endless fineries to gaze upon.

"Can my sister come?" Anna asks, staring at the ground.

The officer leans close to Anna, his medals clinking about.

"Wir wissen, dass sie ist nicht deine Schwester, und nein, sie kann nicht kommen." _(We know she's not your sister, and no, she can't come)_

Anna turns to look at Elsa, with her hands clasped in front of her. Despite everything, the wars and poverty and death, Elsa remained the one thing constant in her life: the pillar of love and strength which kept her alive. It takes less than a second for Anna to reply him.

"Der Platz einer Prinzessin ist mit ihren Leuten, mit der Erde, und an ihren Leiden und Freuden teilzuhaben. Das kann ich nicht von einem Palast aus tun. Ich werde nicht gehen, nur um deinem Führer eine Marionette zu sein."

 _(A princess's place is with her people, with the land, and to partake in their sufferings and joys. I cannot do that from a palace. I will not go, only to be a puppet to your Fuhrer.)_

The officer narrows his eyes at Anna. He waits for what feels like an eternity to her, perhaps to give her a chance to reconsider.

She doesn't.

"Fine," he snarls, turning on his heels, "suit yourself."

Anna sighs in relief, and takes Elsa by the hand. She nearly misses hearing him bark out an order to his men.

"Töte sie beide, verbrenne den Hof." _(Kill them both, burn the farm)_

"What!" Anna screeches, whirling around at the sound of a dozen guns being drawn and cocked.

Elsa's heart goes ice-cold at the sight of the first soldier lining his sights up on Anna's head.

"No!" Elsa screams, lunging at the soldier.

Crack.

The noise deafens her for a second. She screws her eyes shut as blood sprays her face.

It's foggy when she sees again, and when her eyes focus on the soldier with a shard of ice impaled into his eye socket, Elsa lets out a blood-curdling scream.

Anna steps between them and shoves the soldier hard.

"No, Anna, No!" Elsa screams, yanking her away. Frost crackles from her fingers and bites into Anna's flesh, and she lets go of her immediately, shrieking at the uncontrollable ice spewing from her hands. Without thinking, she flings her hands at the soldiers, and an avalanche of hail bursts into flesh and metal. The jarring noise of tearing metal and automatic weapons rips through the air. Fire, ice and metal collide with fury that hurls bodies and vehicles over one another. By the time the noise dies out, there's snow in a two mile radius, and an icy crater remains where the officer stood.

"Monster," Elsa snarls. Her words are labored, and she ignores the blood seeping through her fingers as she holds them to to her chest. With impunity, she grabs a shard of ice and puts the officer out of his misery. Even in his dying moments, he attempts to take aim with his Luger, but the ice wins out, and he dies amongst the frozen corpses of his comrades strewn amidst the metal.

"Elsa," a feeble voice filters through the sound of billowing sleet.

Elsa's heart is crushed when she sees Anna's broken body crumpled against their doorsteps. She makes an attempt to stand, but falls over face-first. One look at the pink snow beneath her and she knows Anna is done for.

"No, no, no!" Elsa screams, staggering towards the girl. It's hard for their shaking hands to find one another, and blood spurts from Anna's mouth when she tries to speak.

"They asked me to go with them," Anna stammers, clutching Elsa's hands like it's her last time, "to be a princess again."

"You should've went," Elsa whispers, tears streaming down her face and blood flowing down her arms.

"I already have a princess," Anna stammers, as the strength in her body gives way. She tries desperately to touch Elsa's face, but fails.

"Please don't go, please don't leave me here," Elsa begs, her words unable to stop Anna's eyes from fluttering shut. Try as she might, strength deserts her, and she slumps into Anna's bosom.

 _"It's you."_


End file.
